How to Create Your First Power BI Dashboard in 4 Easy Steps

A beginner's guide for getting started with Microsoft Power BI data visualization

Data visualization has the capability to simplify complex facts and figures, transforming raw data into actionable business insights. Microsoft’s premium data visualization suite is Power BI, which is available as a free web service or comes with the business edition of Office 365. Indeed, it just takes a few mouse clicks to create a custom dashboard report if you follow the right steps.

Before you begin using the visualization tool Power BI, make sure that you have registered for an account. You can use your corporate email address or if you are a student, use your university email address, to signup.

Once you have completed the registration process, follow this step-by-step tutorial and create your custom dashboard.

Step 1: Collect the data

The first step after you launch the Power BI application is to gain access to your data.

You can easily import your dataset from an MS Excel Workbook. In Office 365, simply open Power BI, click on the Get Data button located at the bottom of the navigation pane or on the lower left corner of the screen.

The navigation pane shows the option of Files. Click on Files and browse to the location where your Excel Workbook is located. Locate your file and then click on the Connect button. It takes a little time to process, and this is largely dependent on the file size.

After the file has been imported, you will see a blank workspace. From the navigation pane on the left, choose the dataset you have imported. The blank workspace should then change into a visualization creation tool. You will see navigation panes on the right with a multitude of options.

Step 2: Explore your dashboard

Microsoft Power BI has various icons to represent different visualizations. There are charts of all types like bar charts, column charts, stacked bars and columns, pies, half donuts, line graphs, area charts, waterfall charts among others - all represented through icons. Get familiar with these charts.

The right pane also has a Fields section which allows you to choose and switch between various data fields.

For instance, imagine the dataset you imported has a table with columns (fields) like employee name, employee age in years, salary range, increase in salary over 10 years, employee address and employee ID.

Depending on what you wish to display, you will first have to tick the checkbox for a particular data field, and then you can choose a chart type from the right pane.

For example, if you wish to display the salary range composition of employees, you can tick the age checkbox from the right pane and then select a pie chart. The pie chart will best display how many employees have a salary in which range.

Step 3: Choose the right chart

While you have created your dashboard and are off to a good start, it is equally important to learn which type of chart will be most suitable for which kind of data. If not properly considered, data visualization can become misleading.

Step 4: Save & publish your dashboard

Once you have created your dashboard and populated it with insightful charts, click on the Save button on the toolbar. Since Power BI charts are dependent on the Excel data, they will keep updating as the Excel sheet is updated.

You can also publish the dashboard to the Power BI service and share it with your colleagues.

Custom Power BI data visualization

Getting started with Microsoft's premier data visualization software is easy. Customizing Power BI for your organization and gaining maximum insight into your business data, however, is more challenging.

At Improving Atlanta, our Microsoft Gold Certified consultants specialize in leveraging Power BI analytics - turning raw big data into actionable business intelligence. Contact us today to find out our plan for helping your business succeed.